In the past, the upper portion of fire hydrants has been provided with top closure members bolted to the open upper end of the hydrant barrel, the top closure members' caps being provided for closing the upper end of the hydrant barrel and for providing a lubricant reservoir for lubricating the cooperating threads between the upper end of the hydrant valve stem and the operating nut. While such hydrant arrangements have included access means to the lubricant reservoir and have further included weather caps to protect the same, the weather caps were usually secured to and rotated with the operating nut and did not normally protect both the bolt means for retaining the closure member on the barrel and the access means for the lubricant reservoir. Additionally, such prior art arrangements required a complex removal procedure of first removing the operating nut and then the weather cap in order to get to the access means for the lubricant reservoir and they did not provide a non-rotatable weather cap forming a partially sealed section external to the pressure area of the hydrant which could be easily removed without affecting the operating nut.
Where installations were provided with weather caps which were not part of the operating nut or did not rotate with the operating nut, they still were held on by the operating nut and it thus required removal of both the operating nut and the weather cap to have access either to the bolt means holding the closure member on the barrel or to the access means for the lubricant reservoir. A seal had to be made between the operating nut and the weather cap otherwise it did not completely provide the function of protection for the bolt means and the access means to the lubricant reservoir.